And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.
—Luke 21:34
7535 In Or Out Of Water
All the water in the world
However hard it tried,
Could never, never sink a ship
Unless it got inside.
All the hardships of this world,
Might wear you pretty thin,
But they won’t hurt you, one least bit
Unless you let them in.
—Author Unknown
7536 Peale On Worry
The word “worry” is derived from an old Anglo-Saxon word meaning to strangle or to choke. How well-named the emotion it has been demonstrated again and again in persons who have lost their effectiveness due to the stultifying effect of anxiety and apprehension. A certain well-controlled carefreeness may well be an asset. Normal sensible concern is an important attribute of the mature person. But worry frustrates one’s best functioning.
—Norman Vincent Peale
7537 The Placebo Effect
Physicians have known for centuries that the psychology of people demands response according to conditioning. This is called, in medical terms, the “placebo effect.” Actually this is a little pill or capsule, which is merely sugared candy dispensed by a doctor for an imagined ailment. People refuse to believe that some of their physical symptoms can be of emotional origin; so they demand some medication.
Doctors who understand conditioning often prescribe harmless pills as an emotional crutch. And, the amazing thing is that it often works. The patient’s disorders disappear and all is right with the world again.
—C. R. Hembree
7538 Vis Medicatrix Naturae
“Our natures are the physicians of our diseases,” wrote Hippocrates, in explaining the principle of Vis Medicatrix Naturae. It is not a negative approach, for it did not mean leaving the patient alone and letting him sweat out every fever or stomach-ache.
Hippocrates gave different kinds of fomentations, opened abscesses, and prescribed the kind of diet that different diseases needed. But he recognized that these measures themselves did not cure disease; they merely helped the patient mobilize all his natural powers to overcome his symptoms.
The task of the physician then was not to interfere with nature but to help conserve the patient’s strength, comfort him, and, above all, keep alive his will to live. Long, long ago, Hippocrates followed the maxim, “As long as there is life, there is hope.”
7539 “His First Worry”
One of Henry Ward Beecher’s favorite stories was about a young man who was applying for a job in a New England factory. Asking for the owner, he found himself in the presence of a nervous, fidgety man who looked hopelessly dyspeptic. “The only vacancy here,” he told the applicant, “is a vice-presidency. The man that takes the job must shoulder all my cares.”
“That’s a tough job,” said the applicant. “What’s the salary?”
“I’ll pay you ten thousand a year if you will really take over all my worries.”
“Where is the ten thousand coming from?” asked the applicant, suspiciously.
“That my friend,” replied the owner, “is your first worry.”
7540 His Will
It is His will that I should cast
My care on Him each day;
He also bids me not to cast
My confidence away.
But oh! how foolishly I act
When taken unaware,
I cast away my confidence
And carry all my care!
—James Seward
7541 When Birds Worry
When the birds begin to worry
And the lilies toil and spin,
And God’s creatures all are anxious,
Then I also may begin.
For my Father sets their table,
Decks them out in garments fine,
And if He supplies their living,
Will He not provide for mine?
Just as noisy, common sparrows
Can be found most anywhere—
Unto some just worthless creatures,
If they perish who would care?
Yet our Heavenly Father numbers
Every creature great and small,
Caring even for the sparrows.
Marking when to earth they fall.
If His children’s hairs are numbered,
Why should we be filled with fear?
He has promised all that’s needful,
And in trouble to be near.
—Anonymous
7542 Epigram On Worry
• I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.
—Albert Einstein
CAUSES OF WORRY
7543 What Causes Anxiety?
Psychologists point out these contributory causes: (1) rush sickness—trying to cram thirty hours of activities into a twenty-four-hour day; (2) straining—those who aren’t getting ahead as fast as they think they should and strain harder for a promotion of more social approval; (3) mobility—in a recent five-year period, seventy-five million Americans changed homes, uprooting parents and children from family, church, and community relationships; (4) threat of nuclear destruction.
7544 What Worries Americans?
A Harris Survey asked a cross section of Americans to tell what worries them the most.
More than seventy percent said they worried about wasting too much time, especially watching television. About the same number stated they worried about not reading enough, not attending church regularly enough, and not being active enough in community affairs. The survey reports nothing about concern over personal sins and a future judgment.
7545 Physical Effects Of Worry
At a British clinic an examination of 500 patients confirmed that more than one-third of their visual problems were caused by emotional tension.
Dr. Leonard S. Fosdick of Northwestern University has proven conclusively that worry restricts the flow of saliva. Then, because natural mouth acids are not properly neutralized, tooth decay occurs.
A survey of about 5,000 students in 21 different colleges confirms that worriers get the lowest grades.
7546 An Old Monarch
There is a legend of an old monarch who had reigned 252,000 years and still had 84,000 years more ahead of him, but went into solitary retirement because he discovered a gray hair in his head.
7547 To Dentist, To Dentist
When a Chicago policeman started to ticket a double-parked car, a man hurried up and explained that he always double-parks when he visits his dentist. He likes to have something to worry about to keep his mind off the pain.
7548 Waiting For Next Crowing
In his house in Chelsea in London they show you the soundproof chamber, a sort of vaulted apartment, which Carlyle had built in his house so that all the noise of the street would be shut out and he could do his work in unbroken silence. One of his neighbors, however, kept a cock that several times in the night and in the early morning gave way to vigorous self-expression.
When Carlyle protested to the owner of the cock, the man pointed out to him that the cock crowed only three times in the night, and that after all that could not be such a terrible annoyance. “But,” Carlyle said to him, “if you only knew what I suffer waiting for that cock to crow!”
—C. E. Macartney
7549 Two Nights’ Sleep
Earl Derby is quoted as saying that a speech cost him two nights’ sleep—one beforehand in thinking what he should say, and one afterwards in thinking how much better he might have said it.
—Family Circle
7550 “April Fool!”
Foe Pisciotto, chief of internal operations at Crocker Anglo National Bank in San Francisco, almost fainted when he entered his office one morning. All 12 of the girls who operate the complicated banking machines had come to work in maternity dresses—and the thought of breaking a dozen new girls all at once struck him like a sledge hammer. As he was tottering toward the window ledge, the 12 girls chorused, “April Fool!”
—San Francisco Chronicle
7551 “In Phone Book!”
A hotel manager in Raleigh reports that a guest woke up everyone in the hotel screaming, “It’s in the phone book! It’s in the phone book!” The manager got the house detective and they let themselves into the man’s room, where they found him in the midst of a nightmare. “I was having a horrible dream,” the man explained when awakened. “I dreamed the income-tax people wanted to send me a big refund, but they’d lost my address!”
—Raleigh Times
7552 “I’m Here Broke Again”
Comedian Joe Frisco was a timid man, and when he travelled he was always afraid of being robbed. One night he arrived late in Pittsburgh and checked into a hotel. Nervously, he searched the closet of his room and looked under the bed and behind the draperies to make sure that nobody was lying in wait to grab his bankroll. After that he double-locked the door, took a last quick look into the bathroom, turned off the lights and jumped into bed. Then, as a final precaution, he called out into the darkness, “Well, here I am in Pittsburgh, broke again!”
—The American Weekly
7553 Unreal Situation (1)
There is a Sicilian version in Pitra’s collection, called The Peasant of Larcara, in which the bride’s mother imagines that her daughter has a son who falls into the cistern. The groom—they are not yet married—is disgusted, and sets out on his travels with no fixed purpose of returning until he finds some fools greater than his mother-in-law.
The first fool he meets is a mother, whose child, in playing the game called nocciole, tries to get his hand out of the hole whilst his fist is full of stones. He cannot, of course, and the mother thinks they will have to cut off his hand. The traveller tells the child to drop the stones, and then he draws out his hand easily enough. Next he finds a bride who cannot enter the church because she is very tall and wears a high comb. The difficulty is settled as in the former story.
After a while he comes to a woman who is spinning and drops her spindle. She calls out to the pig, whose name is Tony, to pick it up for her. The pig does nothing but grunt, and the woman in anger cries, “Well, you won’t pick it up? May your mother die!” The traveller, who had overheard all this, takes a piece of paper, which he folds up like a letter, and then knocks at the door. “Who is there?” “Open the door, for I have a letter for you from Tony’s mother, who is ill and wishes to see her son before she dies.” The woman wonders that her imprecation has taken effect so soon, and readily consents to Tony’s visit. Not only this, but she loads a mule with everything necessary for the comfort of the body and soul of the dying pig.
The traveller leads away the mule with Tony, and returns home so pleased with having found that the outside world contains so many fools that he marries one as he had first intended.
—Selected
7554 Unreal Situation (2)
There was a young man who courted a farmer’s daughter, and one evening when he came to the house she was sent to the cellar for beer. Seeing an axe stuck in a beam above her head, she thought to herself, “Suppose I were married and had a son, and he were to grow up, and be sent to this cellar for beer, and this axe were to fall and kill him—oh, dear! oh dear!” and there she sat crying and crying, while the beer flowed all over the cellar floor, until her old father and mother came in succession and blubbered along with her about the hypothetical death of her imaginary grown-up son.
The young man goes off in quest of three bigger fools, and sees a woman hoisting a cow on to the roof of her cottage to eat the grass that grew among the thatch, and to keep the animal from falling off, she ties a rope round its neck, then goes into the kitchen, secures at her waist the rope, which she had dropped down the chimney, and presently the cow stumbles over the roof, and the woman is pulled up the flue till she sticks in halfway. In an inn he sees a man attempting to jump into his trousers—a favourite incident in this class of stories; and farther along he meets with a party raking the moon out of a pond.
7555 Unreal Situation (3)
In Russian variants the old parents of a youth named Lutonya weep over the suppositional death of a potential grandchild, thinking how sad it would have been if a log which the old woman had dropped had killed that hypothetical infant. The parents’ grief appears to Lutonya so uncalled for that he leaves the house, declaring he will not return until he has met with people more foolish than they. He travels long and far, and sees several foolish doings.
In one place a horse is being inserted into its collar by sheer force; in another, a woman is fetching milk from the cellar a spoonful at a time; and in a third place some carpenters are attempting to stretch a beam which is not long enough, and Lutonya earns their gratitude by showing them how to join a piece to it.
7556 Tsai Chunmo’s Beard
Tsai Chunmo had a remarkable beard. One day, at an imperial party the Emperor said to him, “Your beard is truly wonderful. When you sleep do you put it under the coverlet, or outside?” He answered, “I’m sorry, I don’t remember.” When he got home and went to bed he thought of what the Emperor had asked, and tried both ways, inside and outside, but both seemed uncomfortable, and he could not sleep all night long.
7557 Epigram On Worry (Causes)
• The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.
—Robert Frost
DANGERS IN WORRY
7558 Nine Out Of Ten
There is no disputing the fact that, nine times out of ten, worrying about a thing does more damage to those who worry than the actual thing itself.
Modern medical research has proved that worry breaks down resistance to disease. More than that, it actually diseases the nervous system—particularly that of the digestive organs and of the heart. Add to this the toll in unhappiness of sleepless nights and days void of internal sunshine, and you have a glimpse of the work this monster does in destroying the effectiveness of the human body.
It is plain common sense that worry has no rightful place in the lives of most of us.
—Ken Anderson
7559 Sleep And Thinkers
Boston, Mass—The people who dismissed deep thinkers like Albert Einstein, as “dreamers” were right, a Boston sleep researcher says.
Dr. Ernest Hartmann said his studies show those who need more than nine hours of sleep every night are worriers who apparently mull over their problems while they dream.
Those who sleep fewer than six hours a night—like Thomas Edison and Napoleon—tend to be efficient people who push problems aside and get on with the job, he said.
“One might suggest very roughly that great men in the sense of “tortured genuises” might be more likely to be long sleepers,” said Hartmann of Boston state hospital, where he has studied sleep habits since 1969.
“Great men in the sense of extremely effective, practical persons—administrators, applied scientists, political leaders, perhaps—may tend to be short sleepers,” he said in an interview.
The main difference in what kind of sleep each group gets seems to be how much they dream, he said.
The long sleepers in his study spent two or three times as long in rapid eye movement or “REM” sleep, the period when dreams occur, he said.
He speculated they need the extra dreaming to resolve mental and emotional needs.
7560 Badge Of Lack Of Faith
The late Dr. Peter Marshall, Chaplain of the United States Senate prayed this prayer at the opening of the Senate:
“Help us to do our very best this day and be content with today’s troubles, so that we shall not borrow the troubles of tomorrow. Save us from the sin of worrying, lest stomach ulcers be the badge of our lack of faith. Amen ”
7561 Moment Of Truth
The Most Rev. R. C. Trench, who many years ago was Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, had a morbid fear of becoming paralyzed. One evening at a party, the lady he sat next to at dinner heard him muttering mournfully to himself, “It’s happened at last—total insensibility of the right limb.”
“Your Grace,” said the lady, “it may comfort you to learn that it is my leg you are pinching.”
—The Irish Digest
7562 On The Next Meal
I once saw a man in an insane asylum whose chief trouble was his fear that he shouldn’t get his next meal. As soon as one meal was out of the way, he began to worry about the next. Most of his time and strength were spent in that worry. But that man was in an insane asylum. As long as we are out of one we ought to act more reasonable.
—S. S. Times
7563 Hyperventilation
Peter Steincrohn, M.D., the newspaper columnist, points out that if an otherwise healthy person finds it impossible to take a satisfying deep breath, it may be caused by a common but overlooked condition called hyperventilation. When a person becomes overly anxious, his respiration tends to be shallow and yawns frequently. In a sense he has “forgotten” one of the most fundamental activities of life—how to breathe normally.
—M. R. DeHaan II
7564 Epigram On Worry (Dangers)
• Ulcers is what you get from climbing mountains over mole hills.
—The Bible Friend
• Worry is the advance interest you pay on troubles that seldom come.
• Worry, like a rocking chair, will give you something to do, but it won’t get you anywhere.
—Vance Havner
• The beginning of anxiety is the end of faith. The beginning of true faith is the end of anxiety.
—George Muller
• An actor who’s been visiting a psychiatrist for years says, “I must be the only guy who ever spent $10,000 on a couch—and still doesn’t own it.”
—Earl Wilson
SOLUTIONS TO WORRY
7565 Two Awful Eternities
There are two days in every week about which we should not worry—two days which should be kept free from fear and apprehension.
One of these days is yesterday, with its mistakes and cares, its aches and pains, its faults and blunders. Yesterday has passed forever beyond our control. All the money in the world cannot bring back yesterday. We cannot erase a single word we said.
The other day we should not worry about is tomorrow, with its possible adversities, its burdens, its large promise and performance. Tomorrow also is beyond our immediate control.
Tomorrow’s sun will rise either in splendor or behind a mask of clouds—but it will rise. Until it does, we have no stake in tomorrow, for it is yet unborn.
That leaves only one day—today. Any man can fight the battles of just one day. It is only when you and I add the burdens of those two awful eternities—yesterday and tomorrow—that we are liable to break down.
—Illinois Medical Journal
7566 Either Way, Why Worry?
A French soldier in World War I carried with him this little receipt for worry: “Of two things, one is certain. Either you are at the front, or you are behind the lines. If you are at the front, of two things one is certain. Either you are exposed to danger, or you are in a safe place. If you are exposed to danger, of two things one is certain. Either you are wounded, or you are not wounded. If you are wounded, of two things one is certain. Either you recover, or you die. If you recover, there is no need to worry. If you die, you can’t worry. SO WHY WORRY?”
—Walter B. Knight
7567 Ruling The World?
We all need to remember Luther’s advice to Melanchthon when he was too solicitous about church affairs in his age: “Philip Melanchthon would not do well to attempt the government of this world any longer.”
And that passing meditation which we have on record of the Emperor Maximilian is very good: “O eternal Lord God, if Thou Thyself shouldst not be watchful how ill would it be with Thy world, which is now governed by me, a miserable hunter, and by this drunken and wicked Pope Julius!”
—Paxton Hood
7568 Lincoln And Book Of Job
One who resided in the White House for four years with the family of Mr. Lincoln says that the great president once came into the room with slow and heavy step and sad countenances and threw himself upon a sofa, shading his eyes with his hands, a complete picture of dejection. Mrs. Lincoln observed his troubled look and asked,
“Where have you been, Father?”
“To the war department,” he answered.
“Any news?”
“Yes, plenty of news, but no good news. It is dark, dark everywhere.”
He then reached forth one of his long arms and took a small Bible from a stand near the head of the sofa, opened its pages, and was soon absorbed in reading them.
Fifteen minutes passed, and on glancing at the sofa his wife observed that the face of the president was more cheerful. His dejected expression was gone, and his countenance was lighted up with new resolution and hope. Wondering at the marked change, and desiring to know what book of the Bible had comforted Mr. Lincoln, she walked gently around the sofa and saw that he was reading that divine comforter, Job.
—Prairie Overcomer
7569 Story Of J. C. Penney
In 1929, J. C. Penney’s business was highly unstable. And so he began to worry and became sleepless. He worried to the extreme and contracted the shingles, which is the severest pain known to man. Into the hospital, Penney was given medicine to tranquilize him, but it was no help. He still worried about bis business.
One night, he felt that he would die before morning, and so he started writing farewells to his wife, son, and friends. But by the next morning, as he was lying on bed, he heard singing from the hospital chapel next door: “No matter what may be the test, God will take care of you … ”
Suddenly he leaned up, thinking: “It is real! God loves and cares for me.” In no time, he had jumped out of his bed and entered the chapel. And then a miracle took place in his soul, as if he were a little bird suddenly freed to fly out of the dungeon into the sunlight, from hell to paradise.
7570 Worry Chart
Francis C. Ellis tells about a businessman who drew up what he called a “Worry Chart,” in which he kept a record of his worries. He discovered that 40 percent of them were about things that probably would never happen; 30 percent concerned past decisions that he could not now unmake; 12 percent dealt with other people’s criticism of him; and 10 percent were worries about his health. He concluded that only 8 percent of them were really legitimate.
—Gospel Herald
7571 Governor Never Even Heard Of Him
Bryan had stumped the state making speeches against the Republican candidate for Governor. That candidate won, however.
Months later Bryan found himself on the same platform with the newly-elected Governor. Still more embarrassing, the Governor was to introduce him. Bryan wondered whether the Governor was still a bit resentful over those hostile campaign speeches.
The Governor stood at the front of the platform, prompted by another man, and said, “Now I will introduce that well-known figure in this state, W. J. Bryan.” Then he turned to Bryan, grasped his hand warmly, pulled him close, and whispered, “Quick! Do you speak, sing, or dance?”
“He had never,” concluded Bryan, “even heard of me.”
7572 Three Of Four
Three out of four things you worry about happening, don’t happen—and three out of four things you don’t worry about happening do. Which all goes to prove that even if you’re worrying about the wrong things, you’re doing just about the right amount of worrying!
—Ladies’ Home Journal
7573 Same-Sized Field
Before Woody Hayes came to coach football at Ohio State, 24 years ago, he had been coaching at the much smaller Denison and Miami universities in Ohio. “The first time I stood in the middle of the OSU stadium with its 86,000 seats staring down at me,” he recalls, “I was shook up. My young son was with me and had hold of my hand. He must have felt my reaction, for he said, “But, Daddy, the football field is the same size.””
—Newark, Ohio, Advocate
7574 Comprehending Later
When Queen Charlotte was once visiting her nursery a most amiable princess, the Duchess of Gloucester, at that time about six years old, running up to her with a book in her hand and tears in her eyes, said, “Madam, I cannot comprehend it.”
Her Majesty, with true parental affection, looked upon the princess and told her not to be alarmed. “What you cannot comprehend today you may comprehend tomorrow; and what you cannot attain to this year you may arrive at the next. Do not, therefore, be frightened with little difficulties, but attend to what you do know, and the rest will come in time.”
—Selected
7575 The Fox River Rule
When Lincoln was on his way to Washington to be inaugurated, he spent some time in New York with Horace Greeley and told him an anecdote which was meant to be an answer to the question which everybody was asking him: Are we really to have Civil War? In his circuit-riding days Lincoln and his companions, riding to the next session of court, had crossed many swollen rivers. But the Fox River was still ahead of them; and they said one to another, “If these streams give us so much trouble, how shall we get over Fox River?”
When darkness fell, they stopped for the night at a log tavern, where they fell in with the Methodist presiding elder of the district who rode through the country in all kinds of weather and knew all about the Fox River. They gathered about him and asked him about the present state of the river. “I know all about the Fox River. I have crossed it often and understand it well. But I have one fixed rule with regard to Fox River—I never cross it till I reach it.”
7576 Russia’s Electrosleep
The Russians may not have invented the airplane or the hot dog, but they were definitely first on the scene with “electrosleep.” Since 1948, Soviet scientists have been experimenting with a machine that sends mild currents through electrodes taped to a patient’s eyelids and neck. The process, according to Soviet reports, reduces anxiety and tension and relieves insomnia. Why is it so? One theory is that the device changes the electric “fields” in the brain.
Now, psychiatrist Saul H. Rosenthal and colleagues at the University of Texas Medical School in San Antonio have reported on a carefully controlled study, in which 8 of 11 anxious, depressed, insomniac patients were relieved of their symptoms after treatment. Therapy was so successful, in fact, that the experimenters themselves confessed to skepticism at the results. The device is still used only experimentally by U.S. researchers.
—Kenneth Goodall
7577 Robin’s Message To Luther
Martin Luther in his autobiography says, I have one preacher I love better than any other; it is my little, tame robin, who preaches to me daily. I put his crumbs upon my window sill, especially at night. He hops onto the sill when he wants his supply, and takes as much as he desires to satisfy his need. From thence he always hops to a little tree close by, and lifts up his voice to God, and sings his carol of praise and gratitude, tucks his little head under his wings, and goes fast to sleep, to leave tomorrow to look after itself.
—Heart-to-Heart Talks
7578 No Known Worry Among Birds
So far as is known, no bird ever tried to build more nest than its neighbour. No fox ever fretted because he had only one hole in the earth in which to live and hide. No squirrel ever died in anxiety lest he should not lay up enough nuts for two winters instead of one. And no dog ever lost sleep over the fact that he did not have enough bones buried in the ground for his declining years. So many people put the emphasis on the wrong things.
7579 Dogs Couldn’t Get Worried
A Chicago physician reports that he had to abandon the use of dogs in an ulcer research program. The dogs refused to get tense and worry, and worry and tension are prominently listed as suspected causes of ulcers.
If you inflict an ulcer upon a dog by artificial methods. says the Chicago doctor, he will sit down and placidly cure himself by refusing to be bothered about anything.
7580 Tung Men-Wu’s Logic
There lived a man whom people called Tung-Men-Wu. He had a child he dearly loved. Later on his son died, but Tung-Men-Wu did not show the least sorrow or grief.
Someone wondering asked him, “Did you not love your son much? Now that he is dead, you seem to betray no worry. Why?”
Tung-Men-Wu answered, “It’s very true that I love him very much when he was living. But before he was born, I did not have any boy and I knew no worry. Now, that he is dead, it is just the same as it was before his birth. If then I did not have any worry at all, why should I worry now?”
—Lieh-Tzu
7581 Epigram On Worry (Solutions)
• Don’t spoil today by worrying about tomorrow. The hills flatten out when we come to them.
—Phi Delta Kappan
• The best way to forget all about your troubles is to wear a pair of tight shoes.
—E. C. McKenzie
• The little birds of the field have God for their caterer.
—Cervantes
• A good memory test: What were you worrying about this time last year?
—Jack Key
• Blessed is the man who is too busy to worry in the daytime and too sleepy to worry at night.
—Phil Marquart
• A Negro woman lived to be ninety years old. When asked the secret of her longevity, she said, “When I works, I work hard, when I sits, I sits easy and when I worries, I go to sleep!”
See also: Fear ; Loneliness ; Tension ; Trust ; Matt. 6:31–32.